KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 — The country’s private sector created 24,000 jobs in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018 compared with 30,000 in the previous year’s corresponding period.
However, the number of positions offered increased by 61,000 to 8.54 million from 8.48 million a year earlier, the Department of Statistics Malaysia said in a statement today.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the number of filled positions, which made up 97.7 per cent of total positions, increased by 70,000 to 8.35 million during the quarter from 8.28 million previously.
Meanwhile, vacancies shrank to 198,000 from 206,000 recorded in Q4 2017.
Jobs created in Q4 2018 was largely in the semi-skilled category at 49.2 per cent, followed by the skilled (45.2 per cent) and low-skilled (5.6 per cent) categories.
Of the 8.54 million positions, 5.31 million (62.2 per cent) were semi-skilled jobs, 2.08 million were skilled positions and 1.15 million were low-skilled positions.
The semi-skilled category held the largest share of filled positions at 62.4 per cent, representing 5.2 million positions, against 62.3 per cent a year earlier.
The services sector was the biggest contributor to jobs created (49.8 per cent) followed by construction (23.9 per cent) and manufacturing (15.1 per cent).
Services was also the largest contributor in terms of positions at 51.8 per cent but made up only 2.5 per cent of filled positions, followed by the manufacturing sector which accounted for 26.3 per cent of positions and 25.5 per cent of filled positions.
The manufacturing sector recorded the largest share of vacancies at 57 per cent, followed by services (18.9 per cent), construction (10.8 per cent), agriculture (13.1 per cent), and mining and quarrying (0.1 per cent). — Bernama
